


To Be A Hero

by FoxWolfen



Category: Ben 10 Series
Genre: If You Squint - Freeform, M/M, omniboyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 12:45:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15219440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxWolfen/pseuds/FoxWolfen
Summary: Was asked to do a Fill of Ben having a "Ring Of Keys" type moment.  Thank you FreshCreationGarden for the request."freshcreationgarden asked:I am fairly new to the brooken ship but I was always fascinated with the idea that there were signs from young ben that he maybe was using the omnitrix to compensate for "feeling weird" growing up. So a choice of prompt: young ben having a "ring of keys" moment or coming to terms or something of the sort. I have yet to see the implications of brooken on the original series and while my laptop is broke, I think you can definitely do it justice."





	To Be A Hero

Ben had always felt a bit like an outsider.  Where he wasn’t always picked last at dodgeball and he never was the absolute worst student, he wasn’t the best at anything either.  He just felt he always fell short at everything he tried.  He had thought that feeling would change after the omnitrix…but it only seemed to make it worse.  He couldn’t sit still he needed to be doing something.  The watch was supposed to make him special, but he always still felt just… him.

If anything, it seemed to make him more nervous to use it, but he needed to use it to save the day because that’s what heroes did.  And he had to be a hero because heroes were great.  They weren’t weird or boring, or even average.  Heroes are who people looked up to.  They weren’t supposed to mess up as much as Ben did.  They weren’t supposed to nearly get their cousins killed in space or their grandpas trapped in the Null Void.  They were supposed to be perfect no matter what.

Ben had almost felt like maybe he could do this.  Maybe he wasn’t the most athletic or powerful or invincible… but so what. He could make do with Gwen and Kevin at his side.  Where he couldn’t jump high enough there was a mana levitation spell.  Where he couldn’t take a hit, there was a metal body shielding him.  Then like everything for Ben, his two biggest supports went away and once more it was just Ben.  Just a kid who once more would just be an average boring human but with a super powerful watch.  But with everything he had seen he couldn’t just be an average kid.  Who would he talk to or could even relate with him about this empty feeling of not belonging.  Of just everything not feeling right.

He tried to shake these thoughts.  Tried to reassure Grandpa Max just as he was secretly trying to reassure himself that he really could try harder.  Be stronger. He could be that awesome guy that others looked up to and who would know just what to do.  He could be a hero.  

And then the shake down at Mr. Baumann’s happened.  It was like the first time all over again.  Heroes could be sneaky if they wanted to.  Heroes could do stakeouts without messing everything up.  As he fell to the ground, the older human’s voice ranting at him for messing everything up, once more as just plain off Ben, all he could think was why couldn’t he just be awesome for once.  Then he happened.

Ben watched with wide eye amazement as a blue armored form jumped into action.  Dodging shots and taking down the bad guys with just straight perfect skill.  Hardly any additional damage done… that is until the bomb of course.  But even then, that had been on his watch not the blue fur faced alien’s.  He tried to deny it.  But every time he turned around Ben could see it.  The hero he always envisioned himself as in Rook.  From the amazing fighting skills to the epic hero ride of the Proto-Truk, Rook was perfect.  He even came with chili fries.  How can you ever look badly at a hero like that?

To make matters worse the more he got to spend time with Rook the more he wanted to do anything that would equal up or at least beat the Revonnahgander.  Fishing didn’t work.  Rook had some weird ‘noodling’ skill.  Trying to impress with his one logic of criminal knowledge wasn’t going to work with someone who apparently had an encyclopedic knowledge and seemed to retain everything he could read about a subject ever.  Ben was just lucky he passed English and that was the language he spoke.

As time went on there were moments when he felt successful though secretly there were even more when he didn’t.  There were a lot of those.  It didn’t hit him that Rook, his perfect hero best friend, could even feel the same as he did.  “The only person who doesn’t know about the time loop is Maltruent himself…. Oh and…you, I guess…”

Even after Paradox had them helping to scatter the bits of the Chronosapien across time and space and had, as promised, dropped them safely back home at Ben’s driveway.  Something felt off.  Rook was looking at him oddly and had been a bit quieter then the human was used to.  As they slowly went to make their way towards the front door, Rook stopped.  He looked so not like himself, nervous, that Ben was one edge.  

“Ben… we have been partners for a while now.  Throughout this time, I feel I have seen you at your best and your worst… and yet after all this time…,” He looked up at the human with a look that made Ben nearly breathless, “I am always amazed at how you truly are the universe’s greatest hero… and my hero too.”

In that one instant of clarity, Ben realized that for every time he felt not right, every time he doubted himself and would marvel and wish he could be more like Rook he had never once thought Rook felt the same way until this moment.  “Ben?” Even as the Revonnahgander’s voice sounded in confusion, Ben couldn’t help but smile even as he felt tears.  Taking a step closer, the human wrapped his arms around Rook and said happily, “you’re my hero too.”


End file.
